Pushing "Wrong" Out of the Picture

Worrying about whether what you’re right or wrong means you are evaluating the ideas before they truly exist.

You’re judging before the work can be judged. It’s a dam to your creative flow that you need to learn to smash through.

While many of the decisions we make are made from experience, knowledge and plain-old instinct, we sometimes put too much effort into not making the wrong decision that no interesting ones are made at all.

Maybe it’s better to hold-off on deciding if something is right or wrong?

Why not just have some fun instead? Learn all the rules you can and then throw every idea out there in a wild haze of expression? Race after fun and excitement and enjoy the process for what it is, not what it could be. Let the bizarre and odd and unexpected into the development stages and forget about if any of it is right.

It’s often best to just forget about whether your ideas are right or wrong.

Before there is right or wrong

Before there is even a chance for you to make the right or wrong decision, it’s often best to dedicate your efforts to learning everything you can about the problem you’re trying to solve. If you are working on a client’s brochure, then understand their words, their meaning and their goal as best you can.

If you’re writing a blog post, then understand exactly what it is you want to say. Try to grasp the angles from which you will fire your ideas.

Or if you’re a photographer or illustrator, think about the scene you’re wanting to capture and express. Think about the actors, the props, the stage and mood.

Understand all that you can about the questions being asked.

You do this so that when things are flowing, you can just go with it. You can follow the tracks this education lightly set. Not all the information will be remembered word-for-word, but enough to direct you in the right direction will.

Capture everything with your canvas

And once you know the direction you’ll be traveling? Run. Passionately.

Start anywhere — in the middle or at the end. Ride a roller coaster of expression and excitement and let yourself forget structure and order, so you can allow all of your ideas to leak out out as fast as possible.

Type the words at a speed that renders the majority useless in a haze of misspellings and poor grammar, writing 2000 words when a hundred are needed. Make the marks as quickly as you can, so that they exist, not so they are perfect. Fill your camera with images, even if most are useless, just so the moment you want to capture is captured somewhere.

Logic? Forget logic! Logic wastes time.
Be pushed on by passion, not logic

Get it out as fast as you can so that no thought gets in the way, so that no distraction may destroy what it is that you are trying to build. Let it all just flow onto the page with as much power and enthusiasm as you can muster. Logic? Forget logic! Logic wastes time. Be pushed on by passion, not logic. Logic is not welcome here and now.

Express as many ideas as you can, not worrying about originality or practicality.

This moment is about discovering the unexpected — finding that which you might not if you were to consider and weigh every option.

Our minds can race through ideas and decisions far faster than we could possibly record them. With your heart and your gut in charge, give as many of your ideas as you can to the canvas and worry not about the worthiness of any of them.

… then breath for a moment

Once you’ve grown tired and weary? Stop and breath. Look at the work you’ve laid out. Much of it would be of an idea you hadn’t considered originally and might not even remember passing through your thoughts. Take it all in, decide what is worth keeping and what is to be forgotten.

It is now that the concepts of right and wrong should be considered. It is now that that the sharpest of blades is to be drawn.

The moments of working with your heart hinted at the ultimate shape of your sculpture. They hacked away at the marble and you are now left with something to refine. It is now your head that takes the stage.

With a plethora of fresh ideas before you, it is now that you decide upon the one to refine.

With your finest chisel and your eyes hunting the details, chip away until the statue is revealed. Cut the useless rubble and better define the shapes before you.

“… something started with your heart but finished by your mind”

The education you went through before you started will come through in what you initially developed, but you need to verify facts and erase the unnecessary. You will develop something started with your heart but finished by your mind, which is a big step towards having something beautiful, original and timeless.

It’s all about letting your mind run free and the ideas come through from your library of memories and inspirations. Then once you have an ocean of options in front of you, you must pick from it the best, letting your education come screaming through to help develop the best piece of work. Too often designers will go one way or the other — they’ll prefer to give something pretty but not functional, or something functional but ugly, using only their heart or their head.

Starting with the heart, but finishing with the mind.

While much of graphic design may be about structure, mathematical and psychological reasoning, I believe that what can make a good designer great is their ability to let their creativity and emotion run free for a few moments.

Good design can be either pretty or perfect. Great design is both. Let the creative ideas loose, then tame them in a net of reason.

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